MARTINEZ — Fire crews responded Wednesday to a blaze that moderately damaged a two-story home in central Martinez, a dispatcher said.

The fire appeared to have broken out around 1:30 p.m. in the garage of a home in the 700 block of Ulfinian Way, according to Contra Costa Fire District Marshal Robert Marshall. Three women who had been hired to clean the house were upstairs at the time, and a man who lived there was in his office downstairs.

All four people managed to escape the house without serious injury. The man suffered a burn to his hand and was treated at the scene.

Crews arrived to find the house fully involved and began fighting the fire defensively from the outside. Marshall said they were able to prevent it from spreading to other nearby homes.

“If we had had the wind we”ve had the past couple of days, it could have gotten really ugly,” he added. The fire was knocked down about 25 minutes after it was reported.

Neighbor Bob Robitaille said the owner had lived there for a “long time,” and was pretty shaken up. The man”s cat, which was inside the house at the time, was not immediately located.

The cause of the fire was still being investigated, Marshall said. Officials were still working to estimate damage to the home, which suffered moderate fire damage and heavy smoke damage but appeared to be salvageable.